University professor speaks about the danger of disinformation in the age of AI and Russian-Serbian propaganda

University professor Dren Gërguri, invited to the next episode of the podcast "The Geotalks", spoke about propaganda narratives, information distortions and how these are used to manipulate the public and reach certain interest groups.

Gërguri, who has been studying disinformation, fake news, and deepfakes for years, said that the challenges of identifying real information have changed over the years, but today they have become even more complicated due to the development of artificial intelligence.

"I believe that in different periods the difficulties have been different. What we have today as a main challenge is very much related to artificial intelligence and the level of sophistication of the materials generated by it. This makes it very difficult for the general public to identify what is true and what is not," he said.

According to him, studies show that people have always had dilemmas in distinguishing truth from manipulation, but often the emotional factor and confirmed prejudice have more influence than rational analysis of information.

"Sometimes the emotional aspect or confirmed bias influences more the way we judge a content than its analysis calmly and by looking at different sources," emphasized Gërguri.

He added that information manipulation often reaches even people with a high level of education.

"Studies show that, despite differences between groups in society, manipulated information reaches to some extent even those you wouldn't expect. Even professional or educational preparation is not always a guarantee that someone will analyze the information with coolness," he said.

Gërguri also spoke about how propaganda constructs its narratives, targeting certain audience groups.

According to him, in the case of Kosovo, one of the most frequent areas of disinformation is the interethnic relationship between Albanians and Serbs.

"In the case of Kosovo, we often see disinformation targeting interethnic relations. Even when there is nothing true, narratives are created from scratch, or a part of reality is taken and then hyperbolized and manipulated with other elements," he said.

He cited as an example a case from several years ago in Peja, where an Albanian nurse had mistreated an elderly Albanian, while in some Serbian media the event was presented as mistreatment of an elderly Serbian woman by an Albanian worker.

"This is an example of how an event is taken and manipulated to create another narrative," said Gërguri.

The university professor emphasized that Serbian and Russian propaganda has been trying for decades to spread narratives that question the functionality of the Kosovo state.

"These narratives are constantly repeated. The strategy is precisely repetition, because any new generation that has not been exposed to them before can take them for granted," he said.

According to Gërguri, one of the clearest examples of manipulation is the propaganda related to the NATO bombings in 1999.

He mentioned a case of manipulation of a photograph of an Albanian refugee from Bllaca.

"A photograph of an Albanian refugee feeding her baby was taken and the background was changed, placing it in front of a destroyed building with the inscription 'Survivor of NATO bombing'. Meanwhile, she was a refugee fleeing Kosovo," he said.

According to him, such materials are often distributed even in countries that do not recognize Kosovo, creating false perceptions about the situation in the country.

"Even today we meet people in Europe who ask us about security in Kosovo, while when they come to Pristina they realize that the reality is completely different from the perception they have created," he emphasized.

Gërguri warned that in the era of information overload, citizens often become tired of the overwhelming flow of news and no longer analyze it carefully.

"One of the reasons could be hyper-information. People are bombarded with too much content and get tired of analyzing it," he said.

According to him, citizens must develop a culture of verifying information.

"We should always know who the author of a piece of information is, what source it comes from, and what are the facts that support it. It is not enough to say 'I read it on the internet' or 'on Facebook'. The internet is a sea of ​​information," said Gërguri.

He emphasized that media education should begin at the primary school level, as Kosovar society still has shortcomings in this regard.

"If a society has a low level of media literacy, then it becomes a very suitable ground for manipulation," he said.

Speaking about global developments and current conflicts, Gërguri warned that such situations are often exploited to create new propaganda narratives.

He also highlighted the risk posed by artificial intelligence models as sources of information for citizens.

"Many people no longer go to the media to get information, but ask models like ChatGPT, Grok or Gemini. The problem is that these models sometimes also reproduce misinformation that exists on the internet," he said.

According to him, this could become one of the biggest challenges of the future in the fight against disinformation./TheGeopost.